Head of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, MK David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu) has said that he will propose a law that would dissolve the Chief Rabbinate Council and allow the creation of a new one, as well as officially recognize conversions by IDF rabbis in an announcement on Friday.

According to the new proposal, military rabbis will also be empowered to marry those who joined the Jewish people in the military-sponsored conversion process.

The Chief Rabbinate has steered clear from making a decision on the validity of thousands of conversions carried out in an IDF-sponsored program, setting up a committee to look into all conversions in Israel.

Yizhar Hess, director of the Conservative movement, said "the hostile takeover by the ultra-Orthodox on the Chief Rabbinate suggests that the historical function of the Chief Rabbinate has come to an end."

MK David Rotem (Israel Beiteinu), whose efforts to pass a law aimed at making the orthodox conversion process more accessible failed last Knesset session, was furious at the council's decision.

“The very existence of a Rabbinical Council hearing on the topic is a scandal, that proves there are rabbis who do not understand the importance of conversion. The IDF conversions are in full accordance with Halacha, and have been going on for years.

The fact that there are factors pressuring rabbis raises the notion that it would be a good idea to disperse the Chief Rabbinical Council,” Rotem said, adding that he would promote legislation to that end.

Head of ITIM Rabbi Seth Farber expressed his disappointment over the decision, and his expectation of “the Chief Rabbinical Council to act in a statesmanlike manner, and not to succumb to pressure applied by go-getters, who misinform the senior haredi rabbis.”

“All of the IDF conversions are conducted with full acceptance of mitzvot, and adhere to all of the necessary halachic criteria,” Farber said.

The first question that must be raised in every discussion related to conversion is whether to take a fundamental or practical approach.

...The practical reflects a priority of fundamentals, and therefore does not ensure a solution. The question whether to choose local, limited solutions – whose success is also not assured – over an attempt to resolve at least some of the fundamental problems is still open.

An aliya application from a Swiss woman whose grandmother was murdered by Nazis is expected to be denied in the coming days.

Officials at the Interior Ministry have indicated that proof she provided documenting her grandmother’s Jewishness is questionable, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Monique Martinek found out only two years ago that her grandmother – her father’s mother – had been murdered for being a Jew; before then, she and her family had no idea of their Jewish roots or the fate of the grandmother during World War II.

This selfless, evocative declaration of allegiance sufficed for welcoming Ruth into the fold of ancient Israel. But were Ruth’s story transported to our day, Israel’s Ministry of the Interior would disdainfully reject her application under the Law of Return.

This is precisely what is befalling a latter-day Ruth who altruistically left comfortable and peaceful Switzerland to live a likely less comfortable life in not-always- peaceful Israel.

During the discussion, Leah Uziel, of the State Comptroller’s Office, informed the committee that a large number of haredi volunteers were working in education, even though the law specifically excluded that field from the types of public service activities they could fulfill.

She also found that a portion of those signed up for the civic service in the welfare field, invited wards to their homes for Shabbat and then recorded that they had worked for 24 or 36 straight hours. The quota for a week’s work is 40 hours.

After the extreme Right called on teens not to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces if Major-General (res.) Yair Naveh becomes Deputy Chief of Staff, the designated deputy received support from an unexpected source – Beit El's Rabbi Zalman Melamed, who sent Naveh his good wishes on the appointment.

Seventy-five new IDF recruits are the first to take part in a special program, Shiluvim that allows soldiers to split their time equally between active military duty and Torah study. Last week, they began preparing for their active service.

The new program, whose name translates roughly to “integration,” makes it possible for young religious-Zionist soldiers to serve in a religious framework for two full years. They will learn Torah for two years, instead of the more than three years required by the hesder program.

As part of an initiative to help hareidi-religious soldiers integrate their religious practices with their IDF service, the army is working with a group of rabbis to provide a professional matchmaker for soldiers in the Netzach Yehuda battalion – a primarily hareidi-religious battalion that has been given the nickname “Nachal Hareidi.”

Recently I was the guest of an Orthodox Jewish community that makes a point of being open and accepting to homosexuals and lesbians.

In spite of the fact that the issue is familiar to me on a theoretical level, the encounter during one Shabbat with so many religious people with various sexual orientations, and with families that operate in such different ways from what I am accustomed to, gives me a lot of food for thought.

An online campaign to support women who want to pray aloud at the Western Wall has its epicenter in the Bay Area.

Rabbis Menachem Creditor of Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley, and Pamela Frydman Baugh, who served at Or Shalom Jewish Community in San Francisco, are the international co-chairs of Rabbis for Women of the Wall, a group that launched this week with the sending of a letter.

For more than 21/2 years, she was married to a man she describes as unfaithful, physically violent and emotionally abusive. For four years, she struggled to get a divorce. But the rabbinical court ruled repeatedly that she needed to bring in "proof" of her husband's infidelities.

Ashkelon police confirmed Thursday that it was conducting a mutual investigation into the complaint by Trina Woodcox against Oz Unit immigration inspectors, who she claimed beat her and her family members during a wrongful arrest in her home in Ashkelon Tuesday evening, and the inspectors’ claim that they were the ones attacked.

...Meanwhile the family’s lawyer, Nicole Maor, who acts as legal counsel for the Israel Religious Action Center of the Reform Movement, filed a complaint with the police internal affairs unit, requesting that an investigation be conducted immediately into the actions of the Ashkelon police force.

The Interior Ministry's controversial Oz immigration police unit has been accused of beating and verbally abusing members of an African-American family from Kansas City whose members converted to Judaism several years ago, and are living in Ashkelon pending a decision on their citizenship request.

...Wilcox wrote Kansas City Reform Rabbi Arthur Nemitoff, who had converted the family to Judaism, "My heart is breaking right now.

"We have so much love for Israel. But it seems like Israel does not love us back."

The Masorti Movement has written a letter to Interior Minister Eli Yishai and Minister of Public Security Yitzhak Aharonovitch, demanding that they investigate the event and bring to justice the “violent officers.”

“The family decided to immigrate to Israel and is active in the Netsach Israel congregation in Ashkelon. Their dream is to live a full Jewish life here in Israel,” the letter stated. “However, their skin color is not white, but black."

The revised version is likely to be particularly problematic for Shas, which, like UTJ, is an ultra-Orthodox party. UTJ MK Moshe Gafni told Haaretz on Monday that he opposes the bill, in part because of the religious objection to Jews swearing any kind of oath. That reason would presumably apply to Shas as well.

[B]ecause applying the oath to non-Jews requires amending the Citizenship Law, while applying it to Jews requires amending the Law of Return, the proposals will be legislated on different tracks and apparently even go to different Knesset committees.

Thus it is theoretically possible that one could pass while the other failed.

Gafni said the ultra-Orthodox object in principle to loyalty oaths, and he therefore opposed the bill even when it applied only to non-Jews.

According to Makor Rishon, Netanyahu will find it hard to overcome the objections of the hareidi religious parties in his coalition, which are not interested in requiring hareidi Olim to pledge allegiance to a “Jewish and democratic” Israel.

Generally speaking, many, if not most, hareidi religious streams do not see themselves as Zionist and have a problem with the establishment of a Jewish state that does not follow Torah Law. The concept of democracy is also not necessarily popular in some religious streams, where it is seen as a western concept foreign to Judaism.

After months of debates and vague statements about the Jewish Agency's future, the 80-year-old organization's leaders will vote this Monday on implementing its new strategic plan, which many officials expect to constitute a wide-ranging overhaul, including the dismantling of its aliyah department.

Based on the unique added value of our core expertise, we will focus all our efforts on the following two global strategic drivers, both of which are highly effective in strengthening Jewish identity and a sense of connection.

A fully-integrated range of continually-expanding and deepening Israel experiences to enrich Jewish life and create aliya opportunities;

A range of identity-building social activism opportunities for all young Jews to help vulnerable populations and bridge social gaps in Israeli society.

So how exactly did Nefesh B’Nefesh and the Jewish Agency for Israel -- two organizations with a long-running rocky relationship -- manage to make common cause and work together (as I reported last week)?

Fundermentalist’s take: In our conversation, it became clear that Gelbart believes the two organizations could not have coalesced without Sharansky at the Jewish Agency’s helm.

The number of families from North America settling in the Galilee through an immigrant assistance program will be approximately 300 by the end of 2010, nearly double the number of immigrants in 2009, the year the program began.

This week, its international Board of Governors convenes in Jerusalem to confront changing realities that require JAFI to refocus if it is to continue serving as a global Jewish partnership of purpose, ensuring the future of our people with a strong and vibrant Israel at its center.

Big words, but I would like to believe not too big for who we are. Which is what? Often asked, I’ve decided to lay it all out in a lexicon from A to Z.

Coalition chairman Ze’ev Elkin (Likud) took revenge against Labor rebel MK Daniel Ben-Simon on Saturday night, announcing that he would prevent the latter from taking over the chairmanship of the Knesset’s Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee.

In an effort to make North American Jews more aware of the wide range of opportunities that the strong Israeli job market has to offer new immigrants to Israel, Nefesh B’Nefesh and the Jewish Agency for Israel are conducting career-focused Aliyah Fairs in four major cities across North America.

As soon as he walks through the doors of Jerusalem soup kitchen Carmei Ha’ir, Rabbi Yehiel Eckstein is greeted with the reverence due a king.

...“I believe that Evangelical Christians can be strategic partners for the Jewish people and in securing the State of Israel. There are millions of Christians out there and if we reach out to them, they will stand with us and fight against anti-Semitism.”

What is it about Evangelical Christians and their support for Israel that really gets to me? I understand what makes some Jews — especially liberal Jews — nervous about this group: their conservative values (on issues such as abortion and separation of church and state); an uncompromising stance on the Middle East peace process; the theological slant to their support for Israel; and a propensity among some of them to proselytize to Jews.

The second Annual Interfaith Ethics and Tolerance symposium took place in Jerusalem on Tuesday, and local religious leaders benignly grappled with the loaded topic of the meaning holy sites bear for the various creeds.

The man who telephoned us was a student in an ultra-Orthodox "kollel" (an institute offering an advanced Judaic studies program for married men), who claims to be "120% haredi."

"It's insane that there is no gradual reduction in the stipends. In Lakewood Yeshiva (in New Jersey), for example. It's like that. It's customary that the shver provides for the young couple for three years after the wedding, and then if the yeshiva student is serious he studies a bit more, and if not – he goes out to work.

Only in this country the benefits are for life. It's a huge failure on the part of secular politicians. I don't blame Gafni. He sees a secular politician who doesn't understand and extorts stipends. But this is not a normal situation – the stipends should not be for your entire life."

The Ministerial Committee for Legislation is expected to delay its vote Sunday on the preliminary reading of a bill allocating income allowances to full-time yeshiva students by two to three weeks, after Haaretz and TheMarker exposed the proposal on Friday.

The Smith Institute survey, which was conducted for Hiddush, found that people who want to reduce government payments to yeshivas and to large families include 92% of those who consider themselves secular, 96 percent of immigrants, 82 percent of people who consider themselves traditional and 54 percent of religious people.

The total percentage − 75 percent − is up from 68 percent reported after the last survey, conducted six months ago.

The proposed bill by United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Gafni, due to be debated this morning in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, is bad news for anyone who values equality and the rule of law.

...It's hard to exaggerate the damage they inflict on members of their own public, who have recently shown the desire to correct the distortion and let young people change their situation, acquire a profession and join the workforce.

"The need to incorporate the haredi sector in all aspects of society, including the job market, is a top interest, and I believe we can reach agreements on all sides by considering the sector's unique needs."

And the timing of Gafni's bill is certainly anything but a coincidence. That's also the reason the Ministerial Committee on Legislation will vote on Sunday - two days before the budget law is brought for its first Knesset vote.

Gafni's committee is responsible for preparing the budget for its second and third readings in the Knesset.

"The voice of Torah was not silenced even in the darkest periods in Jewish history, and much of the public sees Torah learning in kollels as promoting the essence of the Jewish people's existence and the guarantee of their eternal continuity."

Sixty-five percent of ultra-Orthodox men don't work - a rate nearly three times what it was three decades ago (21 percent). The culture of joblessness is becoming more firmly entrenched in the community, the size of which continues to grow apace.

...the government must subsidize child day care, transportation to and from work and create a negative income tax. Core subjects must be taught in ultra-Orthodox schools, since without them it is almost impossible to enter the workforce.

So despite the troubling slide into voyeurism that all this evokes, I decided to write this because there are several major lessons here for the religious community.

One is that the insularity that led to the formation of Takana is a destructive force for the community.

...Second, the most important consideration in dealing with sexual violence must always be the victims. Takana, because so many of its members are friends and colleagues with Elon, has been incapable of separating itself from sympathy with the accused.

...Third, when it comes to issues of sexual violence, the religious community should not be secretive and fearful, with private self-appointed tribunals. The issue should be dealt with openly and courageously.

Rabbi Mordechai (Moti) Elon responded Wednesday to testimonies of sexual abuse claims against him that had been made public by Takana, a forum that fights sexual abuse in the Orthodox community, saying "man's greatest strength is to remain silent."

Hundreds of former students of prominent national religious Rabbi Mordechai “Moti” Elon have signed a petition this week defending their former teacher against claims that he sexually abused students in the past.

The religious United Torah Judaism faction, backed by its entire senior spiritual leadership, held an "emergency conference" in Bnei Brak Sunday where Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar was lambasted for seeking to tighten supervision over the ultra-Orthodox education system.

Sa'ar recently stated at an Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry conference that he intends to increase the network of supervisors over the ultra-Orthodox education system, in order to keep renegade schools from receiving the full allotment of state money.

The Education Ministry has rejected the request of the Havruta private school to receive accreditation as a recognized educational institution, a step that would have made it eligible for considerable state subsidies.

School chairman and co-founder Dror Aloni:

"I understand that the general public doesn't want to fund private schools, but such a decision needs to be consistent. It's unacceptable that a religious seminary should receive funding while we're held to a different standard."

“The state must take initiatives like this and make them into a national program, to accommodate the allowances for kollel students to enable them to learn a trade, which is the most efficient way to counter poverty,” Welfare and Social Services Minister Isaac Herzog (Labor) told the participants at the capital’s Bible Lands Museum.

Sadly, much of the contemporary religious leadership seems content with having recreated the shtetl in all its detail. And anyone in the community who does not conform completely is subject to social repercussions and sanctions.

The religious and rabbinic leadership seem oblivious to the fact that whilst this was good strategy in the shtetl it cannot work in the twenty first century where alternative opportunities are easily available.

This is in addition to the tragic fact that a Judaism which is seen as completely out of touch with reality and full of unreasonable social norms loses its relevance and becomes unattractive to most people.

Some dozen members of the group, located in downtown Jerusalem's Rehov Shivtei Israel, tried to block the entrance of cars into the Carta parking lot near Jaffa Gate, but failed to so when police distanced them from the area.

The city’s planning committee is considering a proposal to build an underground parking lot for the Old City by breaching the 16th-century walls of Suleiman the Magnificent and digging into the rock beneath the ancient Jewish Quarter.

...City officials intend to close the existing surface parking lot. They’ll use the space to build new housing for the largely ultra-Orthodox Israelis who inhabit the Jewish Quarter.

This is not their first attempt to get a project off the ground, however. The two groups had attempted to put together a purchasing group of apartment buyers a year ago, when Hebrew University put two buildings in neighboring Kiryat Hayovel up for sale.

Their goal had been to enable young couples to buy the apartments, and to block ultra-Orthodox organizations from taking the buildings, further increasing the Haredi influx in the neighborhood.

Six ultra-Orthodox organizations also were looking to buy the buildings, and the competition would have been fierce, but ultimately the university shelved the tender.

Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein responded harshly on Thursday to statements by the city rabbi of Holon, who has said that judges should be excluded from Jewish prayer services. Rabbi Avraham Yosef is the son of Shas party spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

Police forces in the northern city of Safed launched an investigation Saturday into a confrontation between ultra-Orthodox and Arab college students. No injuries were reported, but property was damaged.

Several Knesset members and nonprofit organizations on Wednesday demanded a criminal investigation of Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu and 17 other rabbis, after Haaretz reported that they had called on Jews not to rent or sell apartments to non-Jews.

The Reform Movement's Israel Religious Action Center and the Abraham Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting coexistence between Israeli Jews and Arabs, also demanded that Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein open a criminal investigation against Eliyahu.

There are currently 1,350 Arab students (out of a total student body of 2,200) matriculating at the Academic College in Safed. The increased demand for rented apartments prompted the rabbis to issue their call.

A woman equipped with recording equipment was paid to attempt to lure Rabbi Yaakov Ifergan of Netivot, also known as the "x-ray," into carrying out immodest acts, as part of an attempt to damage his reputation by Netivot Municipal Comptroller Shimon Alon, police said on Sunday following the completion of a National Fraud Unit investigation.

An old plan to build the new Magistrate Court’s near the [Museum of Tolerance] has been put back on the table by the Treasury.

...Believe it or not, two of the Meretz members on the city council – former deputy mayor Pepe Alalu and Meir Margalit – managed to gain as allies two prominent members of the haredi party – Yossi Deitsch (United Torah Judaism) and Shmuel Yitzhaki (Shas). And not too long after that, they corralled almost all the members of the two parties, who are all members of the coalition.

Thousands of people began arriving at Rachel’s Tomb in northern Bethlehem at sundown on Monday, to mark the anniversary of the matriarch’s death, 11 Heshvan.

Rabbi Yosef Shvinger, director of the National Center for Holy Sites, said he expected around 60,000 people to arrive for prayers, mostly women.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the head of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages, visited the site overnight Sunday, accompanied by Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites Shmuel Rabinovitch as well as Shas’s chairman Interior Minister Eli Yishai and Construction and Housing Minister Ariel Attias.

Tuesday was the 11th day of Cheshvan, the Yartzheit (anniversary of death) of the biblical matriarch Rachel, whose tomb is located on the road from Bethlehem to Efrata where she died, rather than in Hevron where the other three matriarchs are buried with their husbands.